


Frame of Reference

by pipisafoat



Series: 1970 [4]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-03
Updated: 2011-08-03
Packaged: 2017-10-22 03:50:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/233439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipisafoat/pseuds/pipisafoat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Funny how, even though we're on Earth, Teal'c's the one who's getting along best.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Frame of Reference

"Is David Jacobs here?"

Jack stares blankly at the man standing in the doorway. "Sorry--"

"I'm coming!" Daniel yells from the kitchen. "Jack, you'll want to see this anyway. T's learning how to carve the chicken."

'David Jacobs?' Jack mouths at him as he turns away from the door. Daniel glares and steps outside with the man. Jack slides sideways and watches the two talking through the window, though their conversation's low enough that he can't hear any of it. Daniel's brow is furrowed, and he spends the whole time shaking his head.

"Problem?" he asks quietly as the man drove away.

Daniel shuts the door behind him. "I don't know. Maybe." He hesitates. "No, not the kind of problem you're thinking of. One of those changing-the-future problems. Didn't I tell you I was going by David in town?"

"No, you didn't."

"Didn't Sam?"

He frowns. "Should she have?"

Daniel sighs. "I expected her to. Look--" He runs a hand over his freshly-cut hair. "This isn't the first time I've been here. Lived here."

Jack does some quick math in his head and swears. "Dammit, Daniel, how much do you look like your parents?"

He winces. "Not that much. Not since I cut my hair. Enough different, at least. That's not a problem. It won't be a problem. Nobody here would recognize me, now or later - my family'll move again in just a few more months."

"Where to?"

"Egypt. And then New York. I didn't come back here again. Not until now. And--" He wraps his arms around himself without seeming to notice. "Nobody would recognize me, Jack. They don't have the right frame of reference. That meeting just proved it."

"Oh, God." Jack takes Daniel by the elbow and steers him back from the door, back from the kitchen, onto the couch. "Who was that, Daniel?"

His eyes jerk up and then back away quickly. "Not my dad, if that's what you're worried about. Isaac Bennett. His colleague and best friend at the university. He was something of a tutor to me, this summer."

"You're working as a tutor mostly, right? Was he afraid you were trying to get in his way?"

Daniel laughs hollowly. "No. He was trying to hire me to tutor myself. Trying to hire David Jacobs to tutor Daniel Jackson, that is. You know what he said, Jack?"

He squeezes Daniel's elbow, hopes it's reassuring. "What did he say?" he asks calmly, evenly.

"He said it wouldn't be that bad for me. That the brat was younger than most of what I teach, but at least he had the brains to back up his arrogance."

Jack swallows hard, forces the knot of anger back down. "You've always had the brains to back yourself up," he hears himself say. "I ... Daniel, Jesus. You're nobody's brat. Except maybe mine." He forces himself to smile, gently, to squeeze the elbow in his hand, gently, to be the gentle friend Daniel probably needs. He can't ever correct Bennett's opinion of Daniel, not unless he wants to change the future and possibly never meet Daniel in the first place.

"Yeah." Daniel ducks his head, slowly leans in rest his forehead on Jack's shoulder. "That's not even the worst part. I tried to tell Sam, but ... It's different for her. For now, at least."

"Hope it's easier for her," Jack mutters, bringing his other hand up to pat Daniel awkwardly on the back. "What's the worst part?"

"You already know."

Jack sighs. "Yeah, I know. Tell me anyway."

Daniel leans back again, takes a deep breath, consciously relaxes his arms from around him. "It sucks, having that opportunity thrown in my face. Knowing what's coming for ... for me, for him, however you want to say it. Bennett's going to teach me the wrong dialect for where my family's going. I could fix that and make my life so much easier, but I don't know what it would to do to ... this me. How it would change everything. If we stayed long enough, I could go to New York. I could save my parents' lives, Jack. They'd listen to an adult who tried to get them to move before it was too late. I could get a job with the museum and save their lives. Except that their deaths ... that's one of the biggest moments of my life. I would be fundamentally different, and I don't even know how. And yeah, I'm ignoring Sam's Grandfather rule, and I still can't see how I could do it. Because if there's one thing I've learned working for the SGC, it's that one person's life, one person's past, one person's stupid suffering isn't worth risking the whole world, the whole galaxy for." He takes another deep breath, then quirks a half smile at Jack. "I bet there's a lot you want to tell your seventeen year old self."

Jack returns the half-smile. "I doubt my seventeen year old self would listen, even I could convince myself of who I am." He frowns a little at the grammar, but there's no better way to say it.

"Still. Things you'd want to try to say, if you could. Things you would change."

Jack shifts, looks away, puts his shoes on the coffee table. Crosses them one way, then the other. Daniel sits motionless, still sideways, still facing him. "Mostly it's not ... there's nothing now. Nothing yet."

"Later, then." Daniel's voice says he gets it, and Jack bites the inside of his lip before spitting it out anyway. Better to be sure they're on the same page.

"I keep thinking that if we stick around long enough, I'll see my son again. I could--" He blinks, hard, takes his own deep breath. "I could be the cool old guy next door, the adopted grandpa. I just ... if I can't save him ... I just hope I die before he does, this time around."

Daniel finally shifts to sit right, facing the same way as Jack. "This shit really sucks, you know?"

"For a while, I was jealous of Carter, but she's clearly got her own issues with this." He sighs after a long moment. "Funny how, even though we're on Earth, Teal'c's the one who's getting along best."

"Helps if you don't think of it as Earth at all."


End file.
